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Glasgow Warriors regroup to beat Zebre and book home quarter-final tie
By PA
Glasgow dug in to produce a second-half recovery to beat Zebre 14-6 in Parma and secure a home quarter-final in the United Rugby Championship.
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Zebre had been in front 6-0 at half-time, but then saw second row Matteo Canali sent to the sin bin soon after the restart. Defending champions Glasgow made the most of their player advantage with two quick tries from Josh McKay and Stafford McDowall to turn the match around.
The Italians started brightly at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi but had only two penalties from Giacomo Da Re to show for the efforts, with number eight Giovanni Licata having failed to ground the ball when darting in unopposed under the posts and his 23rd-minute try was promptly ruled out by the TMO.
The second half had not long got under way when Zebre lock Canali was shown a yellow card for his head-on-head challenge into Sebastian Cancelliere. Glasgow – with 10 changes to the starting XV from the crushing Champions Cup quarter-final defeat to Leinster – quickly got on the board when McKay went over in the corner on his return from an injury lay-off.
Warriors continued the momentum as Sam Talakai powered to five metres out and Jamie Dobie fed McDowall to dive under the posts, with replacement Tom Jordan again converting.
Zebre recovered some ground after Canali came back on, but the damage had been done as Glasgow – still missing several of their key men – saw out the closing stages to sit second in the table with three fixtures left.
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